Damage of MH17 does not rule out a launch from Zaroshens’kye

MH17 was most likely destroyed by a BUK surface to air missile. The two locations from which the BUK missile could be launched are Snizhne (according the Western press) and Zaroshens’kye (according the Russian press).

A Snizhne launch is backed by photos released in social media of the BUK launcher and a photo of what could be the smoke trail minutes after the launch.

However these photos and videos all have a suspicious smell around it.

The only reliable evidence we have are the photos of the crash site. Many journalists and photographers made photos of the crashsite. Combined with open-source knowledge of the BUK missile we can do some research on the possible launch location.

Another clue provides the reconstruction site in the Netherlands. Severall photos provide an indication of the state of the investigation. For example this photo. It shows the port /left wing and left engine nacelle. The right engine nacelle was initially not collected by the DSB recovery team and ended in a warehouse in Ukraine.

This post will show locations of the aircraft where damage appears to have come from the front of the aircrat. This means the missile was launch from a location south of MH17 and rules out Snizhne.

The locations which have front facing damage are:

Top of the cockpitroof scratches

Engine cowling part 1

Engine cowling part 2

The engine ring

headrest of left jumpseat

Angle of attack sensor area on lefthand side cockpit

forward belly/fuselage

pilot seat

pilot body

Many thanks to the contributors of the Metabunk thread here. Especially user Ole was able to identify many parts of the aircraft.

According Almaz Antey the missile exploded right in front of the cockpit window of the captain. I did a lot of research and agree with this conclusion!

The red Plus sign shows the location of the explosion. The numbers refer to the damage.

Mick West, moderator of the website Metabunk.org created a modeling tool which allows to calculate the distribution cloud containing the fragments of the missile. This thread has some great information and discussion.

The latest version of the model is here. Please check out the thread at Metabunk.org frequently as the model is adjusted by Mick West on a regular base.

Distribution cloud of fragments from Snzihne launch

When the BUK missile was launched from Snizhne the distribution of fragments looks like below.The small blue circle with the cross is the missle warhead. The black circle is the range of the proximity fuse. The orange area is the cloud of fragments.

The right wing and engine would have been hit by fragments. The left wing would not have been hit by fragments. Only by parts of the missile.

Distribution cloud of fragments from Zaroshens’kye launch

When the missile was launched from an area near Zaroshens’kye the distribution of fragments would look like the picture below. The left wing and engine would be damaged.

Also fragments would enter the cockpit in an allmost straight line parallel to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft (running from nose to tail).

Damage with a Zaroshens’kye ‘signature’.

The difference in damage when a missile was launched from Zaroshens’kye or Snizhne is the damage of the wings. After the aircraft was hit, the cockpit and part of the forward fuselage was separated from the rest of the aircraft. Also parts of the engine (the ring on the front) and the engine nacelle were separated. These were found near Petropavlivka. This is West of the area where the cockpit was found and even further to the West of the spot when the main fuselage was found.

It is important to determine which engineparts were found near Petropavlivka.

Based on the fact that the fuselage made a left turn after MH17 was hit by the missile, the most obvious is that the LEFT engine was hit by fragments. It then stopped operating while the right engine continued to provide thrust. As the FDR (Flight Data Recorder) stopped recording data after MH17 was hit we know nothing about engine statistics after the impact of the missile.

With one engine still operating (the right) a left turn is very likely.

This theory can be confirmed by photos.

Various parts of the aircraft show damage which indicate a missile lauch from Zaroshens’kye.

Top of cockpit roof scratches

On the image presented by Almaz Antey this is indicated by the number 4.

There are severall scratches on the roof of the cockpit. They all seem to originate from the same location.

Same photo but a bit more zoomed out (original by Jeroen Akkermans here)

The little red box indicates the same scratches

And this is how it looks like in the reconstruction

Engine cowling part 1

This photo below shows a part of the Rolls Royce Trent engine. It has a sort of air inlet. This inlet is located on the upper right part of the engine nacelle. Both the left and right engine have this inlet on the exact same location. (original photo here)

Although not easy to judge for a non-expert on ballistics the damage seems to suggest a fragment trajectory parallel to the longitudinal (nose to tail) axis of the aircraft.

This supports a launch from Zaroshens’kye. When the missile was launched from Snizhne the damage would be more running from top of right engine to the right (cross the engine).

Also there is damage to be seen on the left of the photo (left of the air inlet). If the part was part of the left engine. it would be almost impossible to reach from fragments when the missile was launched from Snizhne.

The red box on photo 2 shows the inlet on an Rolls Royce Trent engine mounted on the left wing.

photo 1

photo 2

The same inlet as seen on an engine mounted on a right wing.

photo 3

Engine cowling part 2

The next photo shows another part of the engine nacelle. (original photo here) . It shows some sort of spoiler. The Rolls Royce Trent engine has a spoiler which is located on the rightside for the left engine and on the leftside of the right engine. See the blue box at photo 2. It shows damage running parallel to the horizontal axis (nose to tail)of the aircraft. Again this damage indicated a missile from Zaroshens’kye. (clear picture showing spoiler here)

The engine ring

The ring in front of the engine was damaged by fragments as well. It is hard to determine if the engine ring ( nacelle) is part of the left or right engine. The video was made near Petropavlovka where other parts of the engine were found as well. Looking at the damage it is most likely the left engine.

A large photo of the nacelle showing damage can be seen here. The photo was made in the Netherlands.

This video shows the engine front ring around 4 minutes into the video.

The ring has a red tube attached which make a 90 degrees turn. The tube connects to a hole. This hole is located at the bottom of the engine ring. The nacelle is seen here in the reconstruction hangar in the Netherlands. You can see the red tube is located at the bottom. (Large photo here)

Parts of the ring of the other engine were initially not recovered by the Dutch! This post shows various photos of an engine nacelle stored somewhere. It is not seen in the reconstruction hangar in the Netherlands.

Here the hole can be seen on an American Airlines B777-200 engine. American uses the Trent 892 engine as well as Malaysian Airlines on its Boeing 777-200 fleet. It is hard to see in this video but the black circle looks like the hole.

One of the nacelles (I assume the same one as seen on the video) was recovered and transported to the Netherlands. The nacelle can be seen here in the hangar used for reconstruction. Mind the left side shows the letters OINT. This is of ‘mount point’ which can be seen on the engine printed at various places. This proves the position of the nacelle is the correct one. See this picture of a similar Rolls Royce engine (but not used on B777).

This photo was taken in the first couple of days after the disaster. It shows the same lefthand side engine ring in a maize field upsidedown.

The hole in the picture from the maize field is the same as the one at 10 o’clock in the hangar. You have to go 5 sections to 9 o’clock and there is a double crosspiece. Two sections above the hole (11 o’clock) there is a section with soot. The part in the maize field has the same features.

A major part of the cockpit was destroyed. These two photos show the reconstruction of the cockpit at a military airbase in the Netherlands.

Angle of attack sensor area on lefthand side cockpit

Several photos were made of the area near the angle of attack sensor (AOA). Again several holes which has a horizontal trajectory. So the explosion looks to be in front of the aircraft.

The forward belly

Damage to the probably the forward belly also matches an explosion of the missile launch from Zaroshens’kye. The picture below shows the lower area (the belly) of the fuselage located just behind the cockpit. The photo was made at the location where the cockpit + forward fuselage was found.

While I am not 100% certain the area is indeed the lower part of the fuselage. the holes again are running from the nose to the rear of the aircraft.

One of the pilots seats

These photos shows the seat of one of the pilots. It is for sure a seat in the cockpit as the label on the seat reads ‘Ípeco’. Ipeco is a manufacturer of pilot seats. (original photo here)

The photo below shows the seat of the captain. This seat was located on the lefthand side of the aircraft. The seat was found in the sunflower field a few meters from the cockpit debris. The seat was later moved closer to the cockpit and some parts were removed.

this plate with a large hole in the middle and 4 holes around it looks like to be the lower front of the seat (original photo). See this image of a Ipeco seat.

Body of one of the pilots

The body of the first officer was found still strapped in his seat at the location where the cockpit crashed. Three larges holes can be seen in this belly. It seems the fragments entered his bodies from a location in front of the cockpit.

229 Comments on Damage of MH17 does not rule out a launch from Zaroshens’kye

I reckon when the fragments for the most part move along (kind of) the longitudinal axis, so travelling right through the plane from cockpit to tail, they should be found in a lot of bodies in the forefront and middle segments of the plane too.

The tool developper stated the part of the missile itself that doesn’t change course, would apparently have been responsable for the damage done to the left wing , if the BUK was fired from Snizhne.

If you build a model assuming that the wing tip was severed by the remains of the missile, the incoming direction lies somewhere in between Snezhnoe and Zaroschinskoy, favoring Zaroschinskoe as a launch location slightly more.

But, for that model to be relevant, one needs to ignore the missile vertical climb of 22 degrees that Almaz-Antey have found, which seemed to be reasonably accurate.

Hiding behind your socalled impartial laws of physics you seem to hang on to some very ideologically motivated ideas you can’t support – meanwhile constantly accusing people, playing some ad hominem cards, distraction techniques and a whole lot of rejection without giving proof.

From what I can see Rob is saying that a missile from Zaroshens’kye would have totally missed the plane. this seems a very silly position to take. As if the missile designers, even though they have been perfecting these missiles for many years would make a missile that comp-lately misses the plane if fired from the side.

The tool developer has been a favoring a launch from Snizhne. he is probably not going to abandon that idea just yet, and neither should he unless the evidence demands it. The fact is that different approach angles of the missile will leave very different damage patterns on the aircraft, and damage to the side of the plane and inside will not be caused by a missile from Snizhne.
So it’s always possible a stray piece of the missile caussed the damage to the left wing if fired from Snizhne but in the absence of other evidence that should be there an in light of further damage around that wing area this looks to be “shoehorning” evidence to fit a conclusion, to me.

The BUK detonated where it did because it was on an angular approach from the south. If it had detonated earlier, and further in front, it might have almost completely missed the plane by shooting its fragments forward and to the left. The fragment cloud quite possibly might have mostly missed the plane and merely left it crippled. BUK did what it was designed to do which is detonate for a kill shot.

Anyway, I think your time unit of concern is a little off. 900 km/h plane is 250 m/s. In a milisecond, it would have moved less than a milimeter. Same for the missile.

If the missile approached from the south as you suggests, and it detonated earlier as would be expected of a BUK missile blasting the first metal that the proximity fuse detects, then it would have blasted a huge hole in the right side of the cockpit.

It did NOT do that, and instead almost missed the plane entirely, so either it did not get launched from the south, or its proximity fuse failed miserably.

Let me correct what I said. Stupid Metric system (mili is not million!). In a milisecond, the plane would have travelled 0.25M toward the missile. The missile would have travelled 1M. Still not enough to change the outcome.

The missile approached from the SSE. With an angle of attack close to 90 degrees, the missile guidance computer would have been calculating a vector of attack based on interception of the forward vectors of the missile and plane, which by definition is at the front of the plane, and not on its side. A vector behind the front of the plane risks missing it entirely since the missile does not know it is approaching a long airliner and not a short fighter plane.

Also, I thought from the Almaz Antey presentation that they implied the missile is meant to detonate very near its target, not at a distance. The presentation showed a near frontal attack on an A-10 (its presumable designed target since it is a tank defense weapon and the A-10 is a tank killer weapon) with the detonation taking place just behind the cockpit to inflict maximum damage on wings, control surfaces, and engines. A detonation well in front of the target risks shooting all of the fragments outwards and letting the target fly through the occulus of the fragment cloud.

Yes, damage is on the north side, from the sideways blast of the warhead. And its not on the south side because the sideways blast was from in the front left.

A blast from a near head on approach on the left (north) side should have caused damage through the skin of the right (south) side. In the cockpit, the fragments would only need to pass through the two sides – there are no other interior obstructions. There are clear indications of fragments passing through multiple structural struts in the plane, so this should not have been a problem from fragments being blow left to right through the plane. But it didn’t happen.

Andrew said “A blast from a near head on approach on the left (north) side should have caused damage through the skin of the right (south) side.”

There are a LOT of assumptions in this statement.
For starters, Snizhne is 19 deg right of MH17’s heading, and not “near head on”.

Second, you are assuming that the fragments have enough momentum to pass not just through two hull walls, but also through everything in between (walls, doors, floor, chairs, reinforced studs, electronic equipment and whatever else there is inside and around the cockpit.

Thirdly Mick’s tool shows that if a missile was fired from Snizhne, that the main bulk of fragments would have entered on the left front side (which is sustained by many pieces of evidence) and would have appeared on the right side BEHIND the cockpit (the dotted yellow/orange line in admin’s picture of the Snizhne approach above.\

Fourthly, there does not seem to be a lot of evidence available from the right side of the plane. Only that front right section of the cockpit skin, which may or may not show damage (depending on your opinion) and is almost entirely OUTSIDE of the main fragment blast pattern according to Mick’s tool.

Snizhne is near head on. No one has ever tried to account for the damage from Snizhne in three dimensions except AA. Because of the long flight from Snizhne to impact being beyond the burn time of the missile rocket engine, the missile would have been dropping from above the plane instead of approach from below, so its pitch would have been 30-40 degrees different from the pitch of a launch from Zaroshenskye. The change in pitch would change the damage pattern on the cockpit.

The fragments in the cockpit passed through one wall, electronics, and the pilot’s chairs and floor, so they should have been able to break the opposite windows.

The Snizhne model does not account for square hole fragment damage to the left engine cowling, left engine nacelle, and left flaps. The Snizhne model does not account for square hole fragment damage to multiple left side structural struts.

Mick’s tool in the way it is being used contradict’s AA because he (and you) use different initial assumptions about what the warhead designers tried to do than what they themselves claim. You don’t seem willing to take their statements at face value that they designed the warhead to create a near perpendicular lancet although the kill probability efficiency of such a design is obvious, especially compared to forward cone models. Why?

As far as the right side of the plane goes, look up thread and note the amount of right side skin panels lying around or propped up behind the cockpit in the initial post. I don’t see how you could say something like that with a straight face.

You can figure it out by checking the puncture marks, especially the two big holes left to c1 in your first pic are very characteristic (below the baseball cap). On that pic you can see that those two holes are blue from the outside. These holes in the blue stripe can be seen on the pics where the piece is lifted. On the pics showing the inside there is also the characteristic rail which is used to fix the floor (some piece of red fabric hanging on it in your first pic). Logically the floor must be on the same level as the lower edge of the door.

Note that this piece of debris is from the conical section of the forward fuselage, so the skin still points away from the longitudinal axis of the aircraft. Then the apparent trajectories also point away from the longitudinal axis.

Well, reacting to a request by mvdb to assist him in locating the origin of the debris, I gave some hints to an important part he is not 100% sure about (See also forward belly section in his blog article).

In the meantime I figured out myself, there are more appropriate places to do that;)

Looking from the MH17 pilot’s view, the proposed firing locations (Snizhne and Zaroshenkye), are located at ~20 degrees right of forward and ~70 degrees right of forward, i.e. both firing locations propose an interception from the right, not from ahead.

Almaz Antey suggests that given that the BUK is designed to blast its fragment cloud outward at roughly a right angle from the length of the missile, that the lack of damage to the exterior right side of the cockpit rules out the Snizhne site, as the detonation if fired from that direction should have resulted in fragments passing from the left side of the cockpit through the right side from the inside, and from above the cockpit through the exterior top right. As the right side exterior literally shows almost no fragment damage, this is suggested to not be the direction of attack due to physical improbability of the observed damage pattern.

I think so far I have not inspected photos of right exterior of the plane, on the area where some fragments must have come out. There definitely must be at least a few exit holes. In autumn the right & bottom sides of the cockpit & forward cabin was against ground so I did not see any images of those parts.

I let the start site of buk out of scope. too many variants.
only the patterns of shrapnells inside the cockpit can tell, what position of the buk was the last. also a very important insight,
the movement of the shrapnells had a forward memento, so experts can calculate the last vector of the buk by analysing the way of shrapnells through the plane, because it isn’t a straight line.

so, if the position of the buk was in front of the cockpit, flying left to right, from bottom to top, 1-2 mili seconds later the buk explosion conus would miss the cockpit.
and my argument, think of a small fighter planes, there are only 1 meter wide, here would buk obviously miss it.
the proximity fuse @buk is radar based, so the nearest metal part can trigger the explosion, here the tip of cockpit.
it was too late, is my point.

As Andrew pointed out, it’s a mobile weapon designed to defend mobile troops on the ground. Its main use case is to intercept attacking aircraft, so it’s most important to be effective against incoming targets.

Even if it would pass perpendicular in front of an A-10 it would still have a good chance to inflict significant damage to the wing.

I repeat, BUK worked just perfectly with MH17, and there was no delay of a ms. Look at the Almaz Antey presentation again of the fragment cloud and the size of the missile vs. an A-10. If MH17 had been an A-10 and the BUK fired from 70 degrees angle, the fragment cloud would have damaged the left side of the cockpit likely killing the pilot who is just behind a glass bubble dome, probably sheared off the left wing which is immediately behind the cockpit, damaged the tail and left stablizer, and destroyed the left engine’s functionality. The plane would have gone into a similar leftward death spiral.

Andrew, the fragment cloud presented in the Almaz Antey presentation is bunk.
It contradicts the laws of physics.

That is why Mick West build this fragment cloud tool in the first place. Do do the fragment cloud pattern right, and in compliance with the laws of physics.

And according to Mick’s tool, JayC is still entirely correct that in the case of the Zaroshens’kye approach, the fragment cloud barely touches the far side of the plane, and would have missed the plane entirely if it had detonated 1 or two meters (msec) later.

And not to be disrespectful, but do you have any civil/mechanical engineering or physics training or work experience? Or experience with design of weapons systems or explosive modelling? I am asking you this as I am a civil engineer and have done explosive modelling of structural demolitions. That said, I would put expert engineers at Almaz Antey far ahead of anyone on the internet short of a weapons designer at some place like Raytheon or Lockheed in terms of explaining and being correct about warhead fragment ballistics.

Its a very strong statement for you to claim they are actually lying in their presentation (especially given that they openly admit that a weapon manufactured by a predecessor corporation was used in this crime) and misrepresenting physics. You will have to do a lot more to convince me that to simply state it and cite Mick West, who, all due respect to him for his work, does not possess professional expertise in this area.

I will make note of one simple error you have made if you are the Rob on Metabunk. The last FDR position at 48.127997°N, 38.526789°E is not correct, as significant parts of the plane fell BEHIND this point west of Petropavlivka, and the total debris field extends far to the northwest to near Pol’ove and Danylove. I believe the actual position of the plane when hit was closer 48.211N, 38.474E. It is impossible that with the forward momentum and height of the plane that large debris reversed momentum and fell backwards. See major debris field maps here:

I am questioning your assumptions. From what I read on the Metabunk thread, Mick at least seems more open to noting he is working with assumptions that may be incorrect.

Among the questionable assumptions on the Metabunk thread were using the reported FDR location as the location of impact even though it seems contradicted by the debris field. This led you to change the angle of attack of the missile AA presented from around 70 degrees to 85 degrees.

Another one is to claim AA is lying/misrepresenting the action of their warhead when they claimed its detonation created a lancet of fragments perpendicularly outward. Yes, you used vector physics to come up with your own answer, but what you didn’t have, and what Mick was constantly adjusting, was the actual assumed fragment speed after detonation. So rather than take AA at face value that this is how they made their warhead work, you worked on resdesigning its action to create your own different answer. Similarly, you wouldn’t accept at face value their explanation of what the distance was for their proximity fuse to detonate and insisted on using your own larger value.

Bascially, we can analyze the downing using publicly available expert knowledge and specifications of the BUK system, or we can make our own assumptions about how we think the system will or ought to work. If we want to go against expert knowledge and manufacturer specifications (and claim they are lies, half-truths, a cover-up, or whatever), we sound far more credible if we have an actual background as a weapons designer or at least as an engineer in a related field, and we back-up our own claims with evidence better than our own assumptions.

I’m an engineer, but I have no expertise in anti-aircraft weapons design or electronics, so I have no special knowledge here. I understand your arguments and AA’s presentation. I don’t see any reason to disbelieve AA because there has been no factual evidence presented to make me think they weren’t correctly explaining their system. Your argument seems to me to essentially boil down to: “I don’t like AA’s conclusion, so they must be misexplaining or misrepresenting how their system works.” On the other hand, I’ve made my own independent arguments about the crash for almost a year now based on the debris field and the probable impact location, and I have to say I rather like AA’s presentation because it lends expert knowledge of the weapons system to confirm my own indepdendent analysis of the shootdown based entirely on other factors than the BUK system beyond its range and missile speed.

I guess you derive this by visual correlation of the point indicated in the Preliminary Report, as I cannot find actual published values of it.

This point is 0.5 km north from the reported Emergency Locator Beacon, 2.3 km west of the cockpit, 2.7 to 3.2 km south of various parts of the forward fuselage, and 1.3 km SSW of the front doors and various other front plane parts in Petropavlivka.

For me to accept the last FDR position as noted, I would need an explanation of the dynamics of how all of these heavy parts of the plane travelling at 915 km/h ESE bearing 118 degrees fell in all directions nearly straight down as if they no longer had any forward momentum, some of them even travelling backwards and to the north. I would also need an explanation of how the main part of the plane immediately diverted 40 degrees in bearing to travel 8.5 km ENE from this supposed last point. I cannot come up with a plausible scenario for changes in momentum that would cause this sort of dispersion. If you can, please explain them to me.

I’ve read that thread already. I’ve already addressed the purposeful contradiction of the warhead design, the use of a last FDR position that posits heavy objects flying backwards from missile impact, changing AA’s angle of attack from what is shown in their presentation, etc. Again, we go around in circles.

Yes, I made all those calculations back in July of 2014 for myself int he day or two after the downing and am pretty well convinced ever since that Snizhne was out of range given: (1) the spread of the debris field and (2) the likely ballistic trajectory of the falling parts of the plane given that they start their descent moving forward at 900 km/h and at 10 km altitude.

Until the Russian MOD released radar records, I was simply going on an educated guess that the plane took 3 minutes to fall and crash and guessing average speed from that to find an impact point. The Russian MOD gave more exact speed numbers by the minute which allowed more precision in determining how far the wreckage of the plane travelled. The wide spread of even the major debris field between Hrabove (fuselage, tail, engines, and wings), Rozspyne (cockpit), and Petropavlivka (large fuselage pieces) is indicative of the main part of the plane with the wings continuing to have some lift and possibly thrust, while the other large pieces slowed rapidly and reached terminal velocity in the downward vector. The very large debris field shown by the Dutch map gives the large spread of small debris coming out of the plane as it descended.

Based on those calculations and the debris field, it appears to me that where a proposed BUK fired from Snizhne would have intercepted the plane was so far out in range at the necessary time of radar detection. Given the duration of the proposed missile flight of around 38 km including distance to gain altitude would take around 45 seconds, and the human reaction time to initate missile launch, the plane would not have been seen on the TELAR radar and could only have been detected by a network linked KUPOL radar unit, which was not seen at Snizhne with the rebel BUK. The plane would travel 15 km during the 45 second flight to the impact point plus the launch reaction time of perhaps 15 seconds. If the impact point is already nearly 35 km from Snizhne, this would necessitate detection at 50 km or more, which is beyond the technical specification of the TELAR as I understand it.

Could you send me your email (i.e. by visting the blog hectorreban.wordpress.com or sending a message to hectorreban@gmail.com)? A Dutch citizen-investigator would like to get into contact with you about this topic.

You seem to me to be explaining the operation of the TELAR radar in a normal BUK unit complete with an interlinked KUPOL radar vehicle for long range detection and a command post vehicle.

The rebel BUK is clearly shown on film to be driving by itself south from Snizhne – no KUPOL and no command post. Unless you want to posit it linking up to the Ukrainian KUPOL network active nearby on 7/17, it was operating soley with its own TELAR radar, which has a more limited capacity than you state, alleged to be 42 km per online references (Wikipedia and others). If you have a different source that gives a TELAR range of over twice as much, I am sure everyone would appreciate a reference being provided to it.

Per you description of the operation, the rebel TELAR would need to lock on to MH17 when it passed Konstantinovka (100 km out from Snizhne) and track it at least until Yenakijeve (60 km along track of MH17). The story passed about by the SBU is that “Birdie coming towards you” was radioed in from Gorlivka, 65 km from the Snizhne position. So you are seemingly saying that the spotter in Gorlovka could see over 35 km on an overcast day. The missile would have been fired at around 40 km range near Komyshatka in order for the interception to occur near Pol’ove at around 32 km out to make a crash at Hrabove 18 km out from Snizhne. I put it to you this assumed operation makes the roll of the spotter in Gorlovka very questionable, as even on a cloudless day, he would not have been able to see the plane at 35 km out. Who then told the BUK operator to expose his position by turning on his radar when the plane was 7 minutes away?

The 24.3 km distance you cite puts the missile interception between Krasny Luch and Petropavlivka where the alleged last FDR point is. This point is southeast of significant heavy fuselage debris located between 1 km and 3.5 km to the north. The implication of holding this as the missile impact point is that this heavy debris lost all forward momentum and actually fell backwards. Further light debris impacts are found up to 11 km NNW of the alleged last FDR point. This debris would also need to fall backwards.

In my opinion, an intercept point near Pol’ove iprovides a much better explaination of the debris field stretching all the way to Pol’love given that everything in the plane started at 900 km/h going ESE and Newton’s Law on the Conservation of Momentum.

The Dutch Safety Board map on the HRI website shows a large number of small debris impacts lying along 5.5 km along a line just south of due east-west between south of Hrabove where the tail landed and north of Rozsypne. If you look at ther scatter of impacts, you can see a slight upward curve as the line approachs back to Rozsypne. The Dutch map also shows a few impacts from the cockpit location NW towards Petropavlivka, then north of Petropavlivka, the density of impacts increases remarkably until it kind of fades out 8.5 km from the cockpit at the creek between Orlovo-Ivanivka and Dymytrova. Then there is shown a scattering of debris impacts even further northwest to Pol’ove and Danylove.

If we project back the west side curve of the debris line from Hrabove to Rozsypne, it would appear to intercept the main NW-SE debris line stretching back from the cockpit location north of the field marked 66 on the Dutch map and 18 on the Wall Street Journal map north of Petropavlivka.

I then propose the following scenario for the crash. The plane is hit near Pol’ove. The small amount of debris behind this point is the small debris blown backwards from the initial impact by the explosion of the missile and decompression of the plane and crippling of the left engine. In the initial minute after impact, the plane slows from 900 km/h to 200 km/h as noted on Rostov ATC radar and also beings a slow curve left. The average speed of ~550 km/h in this minute would carry the plane about 9.3 km. Within the first 30 seconds, the crippled cockpit and forward hull section is seperated from the main body of the plane and disintegrates. This tearing action causes the large amount of debris impacts between Pol’ove and Petropavlivka. The disintegrating front of the plane continues falling forward up to another 5 km to final impact of the cockpit and nose.

Meanwhile, the relatively intact center and rear of the plan glides forward and left, slowing to 200 km/h by the first minute and then continuing to fall and move forward at 200 km/h for the final two minutes. Due to losing the remainder of the nose, wind shear rushes through the fuselage and begins to tear the back of the plane off and in the final moments, the main body of the plane makes a final turn northwards to crash in Hrabove as the tail section continues forward and crashes south of Hrabove. At 200 km/h, this part of the plane moves 3.3 km per minute in the final two minutes. This gives a total distance of the plane in its last moments in the air around 16 km from point of impact to Hrabove crash site, which at 9.5 km from Hrabove to the field north of Petropavlivka and 6.5 km from that field to Pol’ove confirms by Rostov ATC recorded speed that the impact occurred near the top of the debris field noted on the maps I provided.

This time to crash also conforms to the time to fall from 10 km for the cockpit and nose section with no thrust or lift considering terminal velocity once it seperates from the rest of the plane. All front parts of the plane falls from 10 km high in 11 km or less of forward motion from missile impact with an initial 900 km/h speed – an almost perfect ballistic trajectory.

Why would I need to do calculations for your theory? Shouldn’t you be the one providing back-up for the distribution of the evidence in your theory?

Pushing major debris several kilometers back and north from your proposed impact point means from conservation of momentum the imposition of a massive force to reverse the momentum … but only on that singular piece of debris and not only very similar pieces of debris right around it coming off the plane.

Its far simpler to posit that the pieces were torn off the structure of the plane as the entire thing continued generally in the direction it had been going and fell to the ground in different locations along the general line of travel depending on their drag in the air without needing to call into play massive differential forces to change direction of momentum.

I provided you my calculations for my theory. 900 km/h to 200km/h the first minute, then two more minutes at 200 km/h until crashing. 200 km/h = 3.33 km/minute and 550 km/h average = 9.17 km/minute. This gives you approximately 16 km from missile impact to crash, which from Hrabove following the debris trail takes you to Pol’ove.

What I am not going to do is anything regarding your theory. I think it is up to you to provide support for it. Especially as the only actual reference I can find to the coordinates is from your posting. I can’t find anything in the DSB report other than a dot on a photo, and certainly no explanation of how they derived this location or how it comports to the debris field.

“So, where did you get your “900 km/hr to 200 km/hr in the first minute” assertion from ?”

If I am recalling from memory correctly, the Russian presentation of Rostov ATC data noted that already by the first minute, the target speed had slowed from 900 km/h to 200 km/h, and that the target stayed airborne for three minutes to impact. Feel free to revisit this yourself.

“For a 10 kg/m^2 skin section, that will be 1 sec.”

In one second right around initial imact, the plane is travelling 250 m/s. So in one second, that skin piece ended up 3 plane lengths behind the plane in relative motion? Can you show a demonstration of this happening? I think you might want to revisit your assumptions about the coefficients you are putting into the equation, since the skin pieces would exhibit a tumbling motion caused by its disconnection, and so constantly changing aerodynamics. A piece of plane skin has high mass relative to drag and would act much more like a (not very good) projectile.

I see you did not appear to read the paper about this very topic using an airplane and wind conditions remarkably similar to MH17 that I posted downthread. Here it is again for your convenience. You might note wind force is found to only have a significant effect on very light objects (like shirts and papers), and not on heavy pieces of the plane or bodies.

Here is a paper which conveniently discusses the expected debris spread of a plane flying at 33,000 feet at 485 knots with a 43 knot crosswind and gives a chart of the expected debris field:

“It is clear that the lower ballistic coefficient particles (CB <= 10) are almost entirely
unaffected by the change in initial velocity, showing near identical positions for all three cases.
The reason for this is that low mass, high drag components decelerate extremely rapidly after release and therefore the ‘modified’ initial velocity has a very short period over which to influence the behaviour of the particle; it quickly adopts the surrounding windspeed"

That is for a Cb <= 10.
Would you care to calculate the Cb for a piece of airplane skin ?
Or are we never going to see any calculation from you ?

“If I am recalling from memory correctly, the Russian presentation of Rostov ATC data noted that already by the first minute, the target speed had slowed from 900 km/h to 200 km/h, and that the target stayed airborne for three minutes to impact. Feel free to revisit this yourself.”

Ah. Here you are talking about the main pieces of MH17, The fuselage and wings with engines that crashed in Hrabovo. NOT the pieces you were talking about that flew backward.

Note that this main piece has the majority of passengers still in there.
The radar reflections of which the Russian Defense Ministry said was a Ukrainian SU25 fighter.

Yes. The hypocricy of the Russian Defense Ministry is THAT mind boggling.

“It is clear that the lower ballistic coefficient particles (CB <= 10) are almost entirely
unaffected by the change in initial velocity, showing near identical positions for all three cases."

You are doing a great job from quoting from the small aircraft crash scenario for extremely light material like interior carpeting.

"Would you care to calculate the Cb for a piece of airplane skin ?"

Given the density of aluminum and the expected rectangular shape, it will be something between 10 and 100 depending on how much thick the piece is and how aerodynamic its orientation while falling is.

"Or are we never going to see any calculation from you ?"

Not to try to support your theory. That is you job, along with informing the rest of us regarding how you determined the last Flight Data Recorder position (where was it reported and how was it determined) since there is no ADS-B coverage in Ukraine.

"NOT the pieces you were talking about that flew backward."

No, I am talking about all the pieces. The main part of the plane went further forward because it may have had thrust of one engine and still had lift and some aerodynamics. The stuff blowing backwards in the wind could only be light material – interor fabrics, clothes, maybe suitcases that rip open, books, papers, seat cushions, plastic doors.

you wrote:
“Not to try to support your theory. That is you job, along with informing the rest of us regarding how you determined the last Flight Data Recorder position (where was it reported and how was it determined) since there is no ADS-B coverage in Ukraine.”

Can you explain? The last ‘position report’ recorded on the FDR was published by the DSB.
And what do you mean with no ADS-B converage in Ukraine? What about FR24 (and another system I am aware of)?

Andrew said “Given the density of aluminum and the expected rectangular shape, it will be something between 10 and 100 depending on how much thick the piece is and how aerodynamic its orientation while falling is.”

Now we are getting somewhere.
With a piece of airplane skin (3-4 mm aluminum) with a mass of about 10 km/m^2, your estimate of Cb=10 will be about right.
A Cb=100 is more consistent with a heavy (25km) unopened suitcase with a face of 50x50cm, not an airplane skin.

But regardless, let us calculate how far pieces of debris with a Cb between 10 and 100 fly when tossed out of an airplane traveling at 250 m/sec.

For that, we need to solve the drag velocity as a function of the distance (x) traveled, which is done here :
rttp://fas.org/man/dod-101/navy/docs/es310/warheads/Warheads.htm
resulting in the following exponential decline formula :

v(x) = v(0) * e ^ (-(rho*Cd*S*x/(2*m))

Fill in rho (density of air at 10km (about 0.4 kg/m^3)) , and use Cb=m/(Cd*S), this formula becomes :

v(x) = v(0) * e ^ (-(0.2*x/Cb).

So your airplane skin (Cb=10), will have reduced to 13% of its initial velocity (34 m/sec) or below the prevalent wind speed after just… wait for it.. 100 meters.
Yes, that is less than a second to come to a grinding halt.

A heavy unopened suitcase (Cb=100) does a bit better, at 1000 meters until it reaches 34 m/sec forward speed.

Most other pieces (doors, wing sections, floor sections etc) will be somewhere in between.

Nothing comes even remotely close to the 10 km that you believe these pieces would fly.

So, your assertion that the Dutch Safety Board’s readout of the MH17 FDR is incorrect not only is arrogant, but it defies basic laws of physics.

“At 250 m/s, a detached piece of debris will be exposed to a the drag force of some 22,000 N/m^2 according to the drag equation.”

First of all at 10 km density of air is smaller. Correct value will be around 12,500 N for object of 1 m^2 cross-section (force is measured in Newtons not N/m^2)

“For a 50 kg/m^2 (that is overestimating it) door section, that means a deaccelleration of 440/sec^2 or 44 G. That means in 5 sec this piece comes to a grinding halt. For a 10 kg/m^2 skin section, that will be 1 sec.”

First of all door will not fly with largest area against the force. In any case Andrew was talking about small pieces. So let’s assume 10 cm by 10 cm, or 10^-4 m^2. So the force we get will be just 1,25 N. Let’s give it 2 kg of mass. So we get deceleration of 0.625 m/s^2. And we can throw your argument into dustbin, I guess.

True. Silly me. Was sure that you are wrong and made such a childish mistake. of course it is 10^-2. Hence we will get 125 N of drag force in the first second. For 2 kg object it will give 62.5 m/s^2 of deceleration, so the new speed will be 187.5 m/s. then we have to recalculate the new drag force as it will be decreasing with speed^2. So it will take roughly 23 seconds to reduce the speed to 34 m/s and total distance traveled will be more than 5.4 km. assuming free fall the height will change only 2 km. The total fall from 10 km will take > 40 seconds and the ground distance traveled roughly 10 km.

Much smaller than your 44G. Plus with every second it will be decreasing than decrease in speed.

“Next : Remember that a 10x10x10 cm cube of solid aluminum has a mass of 2.7 kg, pretty close to your 2 kg. Would you care to adjust your mass estimate for a piece of airplane debris, and re-do your calculations ?”

Sure. the updated value for deceleration in a first second is 46 m/s^2. Time to reach 34 m/s is 32 sec, which gives free fall of 5.4 km and ground distance of 7.5 km. The total distance traveled before reaching the ground is still ~10 km.

“Can you explain? The last ‘position report’ recorded on the FDR was published by the DSB.”

All I have seen is a pin on a map with absolutely no explanation of how it was derived or what the actual coordinates are other than a claim by Rob on metabunk of a positional coordinate down to the hundredth of a second in arc. I would appreciate a citation for the coordinates and a demonstration of the derivation of this location. As I understand it, there is no continuous data report of location by the plane and there is no attempt to locate in real time in the FDR by GPS.

“And what do you mean with no ADS-B converage in Ukraine? What about FR24 (and another system I am aware of)?”

Re FlightAware, see map at end of this thread showing zero coverage over Ukraine:

FR24 must also make up their locations by interpolation or irregular reporting since they claim to be based on ADS-B (which we have already shown is non-existant in Ukraine) and Multilateration. That is why FR24 showed MH17 SE of Snizhne as its last known location.

They also report positions after the termination of the FDR. The 13:20:18 position is south of Rozsypne.

It would appear that the DSB Last FDR position is just an interpolation between the inteprolated 13:19:16 FR24 point and the 13:20:18 imaginary FR24 point that never actually existed, however that is just a guess on my part. If that is all it is, in my opinion it has no real basis in fact at all and is nothing more than a guess based on a guess.

So I’m sure you did your calculations on the drag forces imposed on the horizontal tail, or the left wingtip, or a cargo door frame, when they are separated from the airplane at 900 km/hour. And I’m sure you found out that there is nothing “ballistic” about the trajectory such pieces follow.

These parts are visible in the village and fields in Google Earth photos from July-September after the shootdown.

All these parts were going 915 km/h ESE at impact and you claim somehow ended up falling to earth 1-3 km to the NNW of impact. So you are claiming that something caused the complete reversal of their forward momentum and sent them backwards and to the left. I’m asking you what that force is.

Here is the drag equation (I hope this comes through formatting; if not just look it up) :

F_D\, =\, \tfrac12\, \rho\, u^2\, C_D\, A

Any piece of metal that comes loose is exposed to the drag force, which, at 250 m/sec air speed, is absolutely devastating. Just fill in the variables, and you will have some 22,000 N/m^2.

That force tares metal that is still attached to the plane to shreds, and any piece that comes loose from the plane (especially lighter pieces like that roof skin, and wall) come to a stop instantly; like running into a brick wall.

After that, everything starts falling down at their own terminal velocity. Skin pieces will have the lowest terminal velocity, and take the longest to reach the ground.

So the wind and the piece’s terminal velocity determines where these pieces end up.

High altitude wind was some 40 km/hour (11 m/sec) from the South.
Low altitude wind was something like 2-4 m/sec from the East.

Which explains that the light, high surface pieces that first came off the plane ended up north and west of the last FDR point, and the heavier pieces fell closer.

Actually, by looking at the debris field and which pieces fell where, the Dutch Safety Board report’ it totally makes sense from a physics point of view, and your theory (that the intersect point was over Pol’ove) does not.

Now, you could have done these and more accurate calculations yourself, but you did not. Or you did, but chose to ignore the physics altogether.

Instead you choose to arrogantly postulate a different intercept point, and you use that disingenuously to make a launch from Snizhne less likely or impossible, and others people’s reasonable arguments look questionable, and even make fun of them.

If you are an engineer as you say you are, then legally speaking your argumentation is close to what is called “perjury” and “obstruction of justice”.

“any piece that comes loose from the plane (especially lighter pieces like that roof skin, and wall) come to a stop instantly; like running into a brick wall.”

So bombs dropped from a plane just fall straight down? How about pilots ejecting? Do they stop instantly and fall straight down? So the bodies found in Petropavlivka were blown there by the wind? Why didn’t the whole MH17 plane just stop and fall straight down?

When Space Shuttle Columbia exploded, the spread of debris over two states over 250 miles in the linear line of original velocity was because of prevailing winds?

TELAR dont need TAR Kupol and CP. TELAR even work better without adding CP/TAR but need it for all around defense of battery/division organisation (and for protect TELAR from ARR).
During development early SA-11 BUK TELAR dont have no one CP/TAR but serve as search/fire radar for old SA-6 TELAR.
Upper limit of detection dont mean it lowest limit too. TELAR crew have enough time for detect target like B777 and dont have troubles with shot down it. But you trying lie about lack of time, lack of range, lack of CP/TAR. It is LIE.
Im dont trust in any SBU stories. Im just know how SA-11 can kill airplane, it all.
TELAR have range 50-100km on own radar screen, wikipedia written by idiots which never seen this switch and dont understand how 9S35M1 radar work. Radar range =42km for missile with 35km range is outnormous stupid bullshit.

Mister Liar, why TELAR have switch 50-100km scale and distance marks 50-100km too, if radar range limited by 42 km?
What is CW mode and when it used? Why need switch from 50 to 100km and what happen with radar signal?
So funny expert, im laugh!

Please provide a reference to the larger BUK TELAR radar range you are describing. A single online hyperlink would be fine, and the link could be in whatever your non-English native language is also. It would also be helpful if you could stick to either Russian Military or NATO names for this equipment. Most of us seem to be using the Russian names, i.e. BUK, not SA-11.

There is nothing to indicate that this is internal capability of the internal Fire Dome TELAR radar, as opposed to the known capability of the remotely linked KUPOL radar which does have that range and which would transmit radar targetting data at 50-100 km to the BUK TELAR to the screen you are displaying in the picture.

You also don’t indicate which model BUK this picture is from.

Please provide a link of something providing the internal and independent Fire Dome radar of the TELAR unit and which BUK model the range is from, and not ranges from a BUK unit linked to a KUPOL radar.

Nothing like some ad hominem’s to further the discussion – “incredible lie”

My point was that from the time the TELAR indicates a target, the human firing the missile must decide this is a target he wants to strike, either by his own process of identification or by reference to a request for permission to fire in a military chain of command. Only by simply assuming a guy in the unit saw a target and in a near panic hit the launch button can you make this time be only a few seconds.

Indeed it does not make sense that a guy saw a target and in near panic hit the launch button.
Especially since there were dozens and dozens of planes flying over the same area in the hours before and after MH17 was taken out.

In fact, a Russian airliner passed over just minutes before, and Singapore Airlines was minutes after MH17 (and within their radar the moment MH17 was hit).

If they thought it was a Ukrainian fighter plane, then they would have taken out Singapore Airines as well.

I would tend to agree that the downing was likely purposeful. I do not believe that a plane owned by Maylasian Air was randomly shot at, and I also do not believe a plane full of Europeans but with no Americans on board was randomly shot at. Asking “Cui bono?” tends to eliminate the rebels as suspects. They had nothing to gain from shooting this plane down and everything to lose.

I don’t think Russia deployed any BUK’s from Kursk on July 16 into Donbass or at any other time in the conflict.

The LNR stated they had possession of BUK’s in working condition on July 14. Sergei Kurginyan stated on his TV show The Essence of Time in early July that several BUK’s had been repaired by electronics specialists he had provided. The rebels themselves claimed to have captured damaged BUK’s on June 29 at base A-1402, and Ukraine’s MOD confirmed on June 30 non-working BUK’s were captured with the base. The only BUK seen in Donbass inside rebel lines was seen in possession of rebels forces, not Russian Army troops (as reported by AP at Snizhne).

The world is a lot simpler if you take transparent statements that all agree with each other at face value instead of positing massive Russian conspriacies.

My guess was the Kurginyan message was propaganda to deter the Ukrainian airforce. Possibly the LNR statement was too (do u have a source?).

The downing of the AN-26 on 14 July could well have been done with a SA-6, but also is possible the Ukrainians lied it was shot at 6500 meters height to put blame on Russia.

K. said they would send 100 engineers to patch up the 6/29 BUK, but that remark alone doesn’t prove this actually happened. Moreover, it was used by the Interpreter magazine and others to claim the rebels owned a BUK after the crash had happened.

Andrew, I hear your argument and I agree that the word is simpler if you just believe the statements made by DPR and LPR and Russian MOD.

However, all of these have been caught lying through their teeth, and NO evidence has emerged that these “separatists” ever captured a BUK from the Ukrainians.

Instead, the details on that BUK on that Volvo trailer on the morning of the 17th in Donetsk match accurately with a BUK from the 53rd BUK brigade from Kursk, which was moved to the Ukraine border in a late June.

And no match has been found with ANY other BUK.

If you still believe that the separatists captured a BUK, and that is the one we see on that Volvo truck, then please let us know WHICH ONE exactly they captured.

This statement seems to confirm that the Ukrainians left behind certain “outdated and unusable” BUK systems which were “further incapacitated”. It was these systems which were repeatedly referred to as being under repair and which Kurginyan said he brought specialists to handle.

Terrorists not captured military equipment parts air defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Donetsk

Yesterday, June 29, in the media with reference to unofficial sources there is information about the alleged capture of terrorists anti-aircraft missile complexes, anti-aircraft corps of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Donetsk region.

The press and information Ministry of defense of Ukraine informs that on June 29 the decision of the commander of Air Forces of VS of Ukraine military personnel of anti-aircraft missile regiment in Donetsk were quickly relocated to a specific location. On the territory of the military unit management there are only outdated and unusable automotive engineering, which the military even more incapacitated. Subsequently, the terrorists went into the territory.

All combat vehicles military units of air defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are in certain areas and are on combat duty to protect the air sovereignty of the state.

I believe the words you are questioning “автомобільна техніка” is better translated as “motorized equipment” when used in a military context. In the context of the posting, responding to claims of capturing BUK equipment, it is a statement that the only equipment which could have been captured is old and outdated and was purposefully further damaged by Ukraine – no working equipment was captured. I don’t see anything that denies a non-working BUK was captured.

The working BUK equipment was moved out in March/April when mass protests began in Donetsk. There are plenty of pictures and videos of that transport.

Andrew, om my blog hectorreban.wordpress.com (“Alternatieve sleespoor…”) you can find several links mentioning rebels seized a buk on 6/29 last year. Even the Wall Street Journal mentioned it and several Ukrainian officials confirmed.

They all claimed the Buks were “junk”, but I think the scientist was bluffing they could repair.

Rob is only trolling, still hanging on to his Believe in the Bellingcat tracktrail, which is unraveling from under his feet. To spend any more time on him is useless.

Russian solo TELAR dont connected to any military chain of commands – too far from russian Kupol. And russian TELAR never using in peaceful time – this is ARMY air defense on battlefield. When russian SA-11 switch on radar only enemy planes around (without friendly IFF answer which dont have civilian planes).
Russian DoD reveal position of 9S18 TAR radars and show it on map – its usual organisation of SA-11 divisions with TAR/CP surrounded by batteries of TELAR/TEL in command range. So ukrainian SA-11 connected to military command chain with recognition of target (since SA-11 IFF useless) and ukrainian SA-11 is COUNTRY air defense – they work all time for guard sky but never fired missile in civilian airplanes. Feel the difference.

The question should be – regarding your slavic English, your agressive stance, your knowledgde of weaponsystems and your clear on-sidedness – if YOU are troll coming from Ukrainian or at least East European pro-NATO circles.

Yes, Mr. AD writes just like so many Ukrainians that I know talk in English. The only thing he hasn’t said yet that they all do is calling us all “Bitches” in their endearing sort of way. Its really funny to be honest, because they talk the same way in Ukrainian as you can see from the hilarious YouTube tapes of the Ukrainian Army in action when they do something dumb like run a BTR into a ditch at a checkpoint or they lecture some poor sap.

I honestly don’t know how anyone could look at the pictures of the reconstructed cockpit and not immediately understand the detonation location and main direction of the explosion. Right half of the cockpit skin is intact (with windows!), the left front half is nearly vaporized. Ignoring the little bit of window frames, it looks like a buzz saw went through the plane from the front – the warhead lancet.

What one BUK you interested in? Ukrainian or russian? Both have Scale 50/100km on panel and both have same radar 9S35M1. So which one you wanna know?
May be you wanna know what BUK have functional diagram of Pulse Mode generator? Then again – both have same generator with ability for switch Scale on radar from 50 km to 100 km and detect target on range 90/70km. You stupid enough so dont understand what you reading in wikipedia:
42 km is range of modern russian SA-17 with missile 9M317, but it is Strike range, not detection.
Your knowledge about SA-11 close to zero but you have impudence to spread out lie about death of 298 people!

My comment with SA-11 ukrainian and russian stil on
moderation.
Im dont worry about this – 9S38M1 radar have two optimal filters in receiver channel. Mr. Forty-two Kilometers why SA-11 need TWO optimal filters and what they do with receiving signal?

this article has degenerated into nonsense,no excuse at this stage for not knowing BuK detection range,this site also states itself its 77km,the mention of “slavic English” and reference to dumb Ukrainains is distasteful and shows posters are not serious at all,really need a moderatror

Please keep the conversation professional and respectfull.
Terms like dump, lie, go back to school does not help to make your point
Also make sure to add links etc if possible to stengthen your arguments.

Hector said (with numerous spelling mistakes): “The question should be – regarding your slavic English, your agressive stance, your knowledgde of weaponsystems and your clear on-sidedness – if YOU are troll coming from Ukrainian or at least East European pro-NATO circles.”

Andrew said “Its really funny to be honest, because they talk the same way in Ukrainian as you can see from the hilarious YouTube tapes of the Ukrainian Army in action when they do something dumb like run a BTR into a ditch at a checkpoint or they lecture some poor sap.”

What is negative about what I said? The way AD talks (meaning his words and grammar) is just like the way my Ukrainian friends from Galicia talk in both Ukrainian and English. I personally find it funny. I’m sure they would find me funny if I tried to talk in English Ukrainian.

Then you claimed too a missile launched from SSE would have missed the plane.

Why don’t you explain this strange position in the debate but ask evidence from other parties over and over again refuting all claims because its not enough for you, like the trolling you so perfectly described?

(1) Who has suggested that the missile came from the SSE ? Did you make that up all by yourself ?

(2) If the missile came from Zaroshens’kye, and its proximity fuse would have operated correctly, it would have exploded on the RIGHT side of the plane, not in front of the pilot’s window as suggested by Almaz Antey.

(3) If you use Mick’s model for the Snizhne launch case, the right side of the plane is on the FAR side of the detonation. Which means that any fragments appearing on the right side would have to go through at least two walls as well as all material inside the plane. Not to mention that the right side section where the main bulk of fragments for the Snizhne launch would exit has not been found yet,

Ken, the right wing is shielded by the hull and rather far away from the detonation point, so we will not expect much damage to it.
The left wing is right ahead of the missile, which means it gets the full forward blast of debris that comes out the front of the missile. Since that debris moves at the highest relative speed, engineers even adjust the design of the warhead to maximize that forward blasting cone. Such as here :http://www.google.com/patents/US7930978

Mick even created a second cone in his tool to represent that forward blasting debris.

from your link “A forward firing fragmentation warhead is constructed with casing materials that are pulverized upon detonation of the explosive.”
Which means they can’t explain the damage to the left wing.

Exactly (again). The model, as it is at this moment, predicts the Zaroschenskoye site matches the damage patterns more than the S. site. Admin shows this. But Rob is wrestling now with his own mind. That´s called ¨cognitive dissonance reduction¨ 😉

Lol you still trolling about 9S35M1 radar range?
Then look on Red Army info about 9S35M1 radar:http://tinyurl.com/oamf7vh
And again for kremlin bot im mark detection range:http://tinyurl.com/pnnaedz
Information from exchibiton of military technic during Day of Air Force and Air Defense in Pushkin, 2007
here link on full photoalbum:http://tinyurl.com/p587alz
Please more lie, Hague waiting for you.

So the 50/100 seems to be more something like a pulse-width or the time-scale in use to display the pulse shape. This diagram makes me conclude that where the numbers 50/100 are used, they probably refer to a timescale in microseconds.

As near as I can tell from reading that sign, it refers to the entire BUK M1 system including TELAR, TEL, and KUPOL.

I’m still waiting for a direct reference to the Fire Dome radar 9S35M1 and its internal detection range without a KUPOL unit. This site below gives all the same technical data you provided on that sign, but notes the internal 9S35M1 radar as having a 32 km range.

“Also, what is the problem if a 32 km range for a TELAR “Fire Dome” radar ? Snizhne was only 24.3 km away from the last FDR point according to the Dutch Safety Board.”

The plane was moving 15.25 km/minute. The missile flies at around 54 km/minute, so 30 seconds to the 24 km distance. That puts the plane nearly 32 km out at firing, which would mean it was essentially shot at blind if range number and last FDR number are correct. I personally happen to believe the last FDR number is incorrect, and the range was closer to 33 km from Snizhne to the point of impact. I’ve explained this upthread to Rob. Including altitude, the flight path of the missile would take around 45 seconds to that range, and would put the location of the plane at the time of firing at around 45 km from Snizhne.

The use of the TELAR in autonomous mode is meant as an “in extremis” case on the battle fields for it to continue to defend itself and its tanks if the KUPOL were lost or if communication broke down. It’s normal design uses the internal TELAR radar for tracking during missile flight and not for independent targetting from the KUPOL. The provision of this capability is actually a design enhaneement over other systems like the Patriot, which lack it entirely.

It says a lot that your reaction is to ridicule this capability in the BUK design.

I wonder what kind of fragment/scrapnel speeds can a BUK warhead generate?
I read 2000m/s mentioned, but it would seem insanely high speed (except for small metal dust).
Is there any factual info somewhere about it?

Almaz-Antey give on briefing info about fragments speed (for static missile) 1430-2480 m/s. It close for S-200 missile warhead with fragments speed up to 2500 m/s. So it looks like true.
Gurney velocity calculator give same value.

{The use of the TELAR in autonomous mode is meant as an “in extremis” case on the battle fields for it to continue to defend itself and its tanks if the KUPOL were lost or if communication broke down.}
Just for your info – TELAR of SA-11 was developed much before TAR Kupol, and TELAR radar even used for search, track, lock targets and fire missile from predecessor TEL SA-6. TELAR radar have more accuracy for guide missile then TAR. So your sentence about “in extremis” is nothing but lack of knowledge.

Since you’ve decided to bring up older systems, here is a useful link for everyone regarding the SA-6 KUB system. Please note the use of a TAR vehicle named LONG TRACK by Nato in this system, contrary to what you assert and also the statements:

“The LONG TRACK target acquisition radar is also associated with the SA-6 system. After target data has been acquired by the SA-^ regiment’s LONG TRACK surveillance radar, target acquistion and fire control are taken over by the STRAIGHT FLUSH missile site radars.”

“Besides being vulnerable to suppresive fires and ECM, the system is slaved to the long-range LONG TRACK radar. Without it the SA-6 is “blind” at high altitudes.”

Please note different radar ranges are asserted on the Wikipedia article on the SA-6.

BTW, regarding “TELAR radar have more accuracy for guide missile then TAR”, the reason is that the FIRE DOME radar on the TELAR is used for target guideance, while the SNOW DRIFT/KUPOL radar is used for target acquisition and tracking of multiple targets.

The more this goes on, I wonder if we are not just talking past each other. You keep going on and on about radar acquisition/tracking range, while I have been discussing the radar ability to target an airplane and guide the missile to it. My original assertion was the MH17 was out of range from Snizhne at the time of engagement and missile impact, because I believe the impact was closer to Pol’ove as shown on the track at this link:

1. TELAR of SA-11 (9A38) developed for autonomous use with TEL from SA-6 (2P25) even without TAR 1S91 (SA-6 radars 1S11+1S31), combination of one TAR 1S91 + 4 TEL 2P25 + 1 TELAR 9A38 called battery 2K12M4 Kub-M4. Reason why TELAR received radar was low survivality on battlefield of TAR, then many TELs become blind and useless. Its expirience from Arab-israeli war where SA-6 used.
So TELAR of SA-11 can be used without TAR.
2. Even old TELAR of SA-11 (9A38) which have radar 9S35 (note – without M1 modification) have detecting range up to 77 km (targets on alt =3km with RCS=1m2, B772 with alt=10km much easier for detect on any technical range). Readiness time (delay between detection target and launch missile) was 24-27 seconds (MH17 can fly only 6-7km). So you lied about detection range (for modernised radar 9S35M1) and about readiness time.
3. Missile 9M38M1 have fly time 45 seconds, but B772 can run only 11 km during this time. You lie about 15 km.
4. TAR 9S18 Kupol, at first, dont intend to use with TELAR 9A38 and 9A310. But development of 9A310 (with range of missile up to 35 km) as stand-alone air-defense complex show ability for use in division order where TAR 9S18 must be used. It again argument for possible use TELAR without TAR on range of technical detection range. Radar equation for radar 9S35M1 you can easy calculate.
5. You still dont understand how stupid your limitation on detection range for radar 9S35M1 even after found distance 50/100 km on radar panel, switch Scale 50/100km on panel and scheme, link on open info from official source. im think you too much and now believe in your lie. But we dont.
TELAR SA-11 dont have any troubles with detection MH17 on range up to 90 km and have enough time for lock, track and fire missile at maximum range.

So far there is zero evidence to support Zaroshens’kye over Snizhne,all can be either both or disputed based on belief,now ppl are arguing about last FDR which has nothing to do with visible damage,to go outside the scope off the post means bringing up Z locals stating no BuK and no UA forces only rebels in the area,then SBIRS,also phone intercepts etc.To stick with the A-A presentation and accept the missile passes MH17 by 3/4 meters R to L before burst means it would have missed ALCM (2ft wide) and F-15 much faster (1600mph)two of its stated target types,A-A presentation looks to me like a forced compromise between known damage and burst point

There is zero reliable evidence for a Snizhne launch either. All photos and videos do not have a timestamp. They come from suspicious sources. Eyewitnesses tell different stories. Some saw a launch north of Snizhne, some many miles south. There is not a single story.
Add to that that the single source Bellingcat who published about the supposed route of the BUK did not investigate AT ALL social media on Ukraine BUKs.
There are no strict borders between rebel controlled area and Ukraine controlled area. There was a video which showed Ukraine vehicles driving north-south end of July in supposed rebel controled area.
SBIR data has not been released. Just an impression anyone can make.
US did not release any intelligence yet they have the most advanced satellites. The satellite picture Bellingcat bought did not show the BUK enroute to Snizhne. Phone intercepts could be faked.

There is a single source of evidence which can be trusted and that is the photos of the debris. The authenticy of the rest is doubtfull.

your missing my point,above discussion now is over half about FDR and a debate over TELAR detection range not about damage at all,evidence for Snizhne or FDR or Telar range, Russian motive etc should not be really included only damage

This last comment of yours is interesting, since it tells that you are not following the scientific method, but instead an ideological line of arguments to determine the difference between what is true and what is false.

For example, with remarks like this :

“There is zero reliable evidence for a Snizhne launch either. All photos and videos do not have a timestamp. They come from suspicious sources.”

you are asking to provide more evidence that the evidence that is there is true, which is a subjective road that leads nowhere.

So, what IF these videos and pictures of the convoy from Donetsk to Snizhne was nicely time/date stamped ? Would you accept it as reliable then ? Or would you argue that the time/date stamp may have been doctored ?

And when on top of that the person that took the pictures swears that he took that picture at that time and date, would you accept it as reliable ? Or would you argue that that person may have a bias and thus cannot be trusted ?

You see, you can go on forever with that line of argument, never accepting ANY evidence as reliable, if you choose (from an ideological point of view) to disagree with a statement.

And that is because the scientific method can NEVER prove a true statement to be true.
Using the scientific method you can ONLY prove a false statement to be false.

In summary, the process goes like this : from all evidence, debunk all false statements, and the evidence that are true will be left over.

So, in order to make progress on finding the TRUTH about what happened to MH17, you need to not ask for more reliability, but you need to DEBUNK evidence that you don’t trust !

And the FACT is that the evidence for the launch from Snizhne (videos, pictures, US Pentagon statement, etc etc) has NOT been debunked.

Instead evidence for a Ukrainian BUK in the area to be moved (as presented by the Russian Defense Ministry) has been DEBUNKED since they used satellite pictures from June.

And evidence for a BUKs from Zaroshens’kye (as claimed by the Russian Defense Ministry as well) is DEBUNKED, since the satellite images are not just misdated, but also seem to be altered (for example the shadows of the three vehicles point in different directions).

So, tell me, if there were evidence that a Ukrainian BUK in the area that was moved to Zaroshens’kye to fire the missile, why did the Russian Defense Ministry have to fabricate their evidence ?

And similar line of reasoning : If the missile was truely shot from Zaroshens’kye, why did Almaz Antey have to ignore velocity vector addition in their dynamic velocity distribution pattern ?

Needless to say : once a statement is proven false (such as the Russian Defense Ministry’s claims), it cannot be used any more to claim a scenario.

So at this point, there is ZERO evidence for a Ukrainian BUK active on July 17, and ZERO evidence for a launch from Zaroshens’kye (by Ukrainians or “separatists”).

Yet all the evidence for the Snizhne launch is still standing.

And THAT is how piece by piece, the false statements are filtered out so that the evidence that remains standing will show the TRUTH.

The evidence presented so far is suspicious. It might be impossible to debunk but so far Bellingcat not even tried to debunk. So many people are in a state of mind this is TRUE evidence.
I have seen various people debunking the photos as being Photoshopped. But these people are not named Bellingcat so not attention.

Not a single media published about the way these videos and photos all of a sudden appeared on the internet. Who published those? Why all of a sudden a second photo of Paris Match showed up months later? Why we know nothing about the circumstances the photo was made in. Why are these the only photos of the BUK while many people in the area have a mobile phone. Why different eyewitnesses tell different stories?
Why didn’t the US provide their satellite photos to the public?
Why was the shotdown of the Tu154 solved in a couple of days and we still do not know much about MH17?

I do not think this is enough evidence the killer of 298 people will go to prison.

True the Russians lied about many things which make them suspicious.

There are just too many questions to be answered before conclusions can be made.

The truth is impossible to debunk. So that is not a debunk argument either.

“but so far Bellingcat not even tried to debunk.”

That is the argument of a cough potato.

“So many people are in a state of mind this is TRUE evidence.”

The state of mind of many people is not important.
The evidence stands as long as it is not debunked.

And the rest of your questions are again appeal to authority and suspicion.
All of which is a logical fallacy, and NO argument against the evidence itself.
And you know that (or at least SHOULD know that by now).

USA dont provide satellite photo to public by simple reason – it is top secret information. Ability for spy with certain reslution or wave length is vital information for save usefulness of recon sats. You dont ask police for open all money deposits if someone stolen your wallet.

admin said “True the Russians lied about many things which make them suspicious.”

No kidding.
For starters, if the Ukrainians shot down MH17, why are the Russians lying ?

And secondly, if the “separatists” shot down MH17 with a Ukrainian BUK why are the Russians lying ?

Which leaves only two possibilities :
(1) the “separatists” shot down MH17 with a Russian BUK. But here BOTH the “separatists” AND the Russians claim that the “separatists” never owned a BUK.
So that’s not it. Which leaves only this scenario :

(2) The Russians shot down MH17 with a Russian BUK.
Which is EXACTLY the Bellingcat scenario, which provides the evidence that that Russian BUK came from the 53rd BUK brigade from Kursk.

The only thing undecided is if that Russian BUK with Russian crew took down MH17 deliberately, or if it was some sort of freak “accident” caused by a mistake by the Russian military.

If the latter, why were Russian airliners still happily flying over the area not just on July 17 but ever after the rest of the world avoided the area on July 24 ?https://apps.correctiv.org/mh17/

Pictures of a BUK on a low loader trailer are evidence of a Buk being transported on a low loader trailer. Without dates, the pictures could be taken any day prior to the date they are published on the internet.

The damage pattern to the airplane and the explosion pattern of the warhead and the scatter pattern of the debris are the only available evidence of where the missile was fired from, since the US does not feel like sharing to a candid world what satellite imagery it might have.

Rob, there is no evidence for Snizhne. All the evidence is unreliable photos with not dates, and no sources.
A US Pentagon statement is not evidence either. A US Pentagon statement is an unevidenced assertion from known liars. I’m not trying to insult you as an American but it’s just a fact.

Ken, you really don’t get it.
“reliable” is a subjective argument.
You need to DEBUNK the Snizhne evidence to invalidate it.
Just like we DEBUNKED the Russian Defense Ministry’s evidence of a Ukrainian BUK moving in the area on the 17th.

Rob,
1.The smoke trail has been debunked by Neal Krawetz.
2.The Torez photo has been debunked because the weather is wrong.
3.The Luhansk video has been debunked because the Ukrainains admit they had a video of a buk from an earlier date there.. So unless they produce the earlier video we can safely assume the video we have is the earlier one.
4.the Paris match photo has been debunked because it does not show up in the satellite photo that Bellingcat bought.
Shall we go on?

America has no credibility when it makes assertions. There have been too many lies.

1. http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150605/1022977007.html
2. Looking forward to URL of that claim as well
3. Very unlikely. Why didn’t Ukraine release the second video?
4. Bellingcat purchased a sat picture covering a large area north and west of Donetsk. I believe the first 30 km of the route from Donetsk to Snizhne is covered by the sat photo. The BUK could not be seen.

You believe in sat photo which should covering large area with first 30km route of BUK.
But you dont believe pictures from russian DoD was photoshoped, it was debunked by same sat photo (read previous sentence).
How funny.

Doesn’t that make Bellingcat hypocrites?
But what about you where on metabunk you post photos of the wrong missile but no one at Metabunk asks to to provide a source. Do you like posting false diagrams? 🙂

1. “”I had nothing to do with their [Bellingcat’s] faulty analysis,” Dr. Krawetz said on his Twitter account.”

The very definition of an argument by authority.
Marcel, why do you keep arguing this way ?
And why the link to Sputnik ?

If you are to present an argument by authority, then at least link to the twitter account directly.

2. Ken ? Any progress ?

3. Asking why is an appeal to suspicion. Not an argument.
I myself was highly suspicious of the claim that that Luhansk video was taken on the morning of the 18th, for a variety of reasons. I even spend two months collecting evidence (tracing that streetlight in the video). Even though I got real close, I was NOT able to solidly DEBUNK that it was taken on the morning of the 18th, and thus I CAN’T debunk the Ukraine/Bellingcat/JIT scenario that this BUK in the video was moving out of the country on the morning of the 18th.

If YOU can, then please present your argument. But suspicion is NOT evidence.

And just image if there is only one video; the one on that Volvo cruising through Luhansk.
Why would the Russians were parading a BUK with only 3 missiles through Luhansk, BEFORE MH17 happened, and what does that tell you about their intent ?

4. Ah. I did not even see that latest Bellingcat post. How cool that Bellingcat tried to find more evidence for the ONLY theory left over with evidence of which BUK exactly shot down MH17 and from where. Anyone should encourage that.

Now that the did not find that BUK at 11:08am in the first 30 km of the route from Donetsk to Snizhne, of course does not mean much.
– The timing (based on shadows) of the Donetsk picture could be a bit off (may have been 10:30 or 10:45 instead of 11:00).
– Or the BUK did not take the plain H21 route that Bellingcat purchased, but made some detours (like for example the July 15 convoy did).
– Or the BUK at 11:08 just happened to be in a shielded area (by trees, or clouds) and thus not visible in the WorldView satellite image.

Either way, to say (as Ken Oath just did) that the “the Paris match photo has been debunked because it does not show up in the satellite photo that Bellingcat bought.” is unfounded, and actually suggests that Ken Oath either has not a clue about what “debunking” means, or he is deliberately trying to twist reason.

Come to think of it, maybe I’m in the wrong forum here.
I thought that “whathappenedtoflightmh17.com” was an honest and unbiased forum, but with this post (pre-determining an outcome of a discussion that was ongoing at metabunk, without mentioning that Almaz Antey’s dynamic velocity distribution pattern has no basis in physics and math) as well as Marcel’s suspicious “There is zero reliable evidence for a Snizhne launch either.” post, the musings of “Andrew” here who challenges the Dutch Safety Board’s MH17 FDR readings while ignoring the drag equation, and when confronted with such basic physics, another considerate guest poster here named “Hector Reban” starts throwing insults and ad hominems, apparently all within the posting standards here at “whathappenedtoflightmh17.com”.

Marcel, if you just want me to go away, and continue your blog without my notes, please tell me so and I will be gone.

would quite agree with Rob on this,none of the above has been debunked at all,would be big news if it had,suspion is not proof never has been,however all of the above back the fact rebels indeed had a BuK and Westerbeke himself stated phone intercepts were tested and genuine,these show BuK delivery and departure from Ukraine to Russia,to say he is either wrong or mislead is really reaching without proof

Eric said “The Ukrainians say the rebels captured buks and that one was filmed in…guess where….in Lughansk!”

The Ukrainians do not say that “the rebels captured buks”. They only note that a BUK system was filmed in Luhansk (and note this is on the 17th, after the Ukrainians already noticed on the 14th that the Russian Federation was directly involved in shooting down one of their airplanes).

They do not mention the origin of that BUK (although they could have mentioned that it came from Russia, since none of their own BUKs was missing), so either way your assumption that they “captured buks” from the “incompetent Ukrainians” is just part of your own unfounded allegations, which you seem to feel comfortable with stating without ANY evidence.

No Andrew.
The determined that because one of their AN26 transport planes was shot down from high altitude (6200 meters) along the Russian border.

The “separatists” could not have downed that plane with their MANPADs or even their Strela 10. And since this area is right over a major commercial airline corridor, where Russian civilian planes pass overhead every few minutes, the guys that shot down that plane not only used an advanced SAM, but also knew EXACTLY what they were shooting at.

The author makes a plea for “independently verifiably data” to be made available to “investigative journalists”, which makes sense.

After all, we have seen amazing results from Bellingcat, using publicly verifiable data (from GoogleEarth and WorldView) to show that, for example, the Russian Defense Ministry fabricated evidence to blame Ukraine for MH17.

And that the details on the BUK moving from Donetsk to the launch site south of Snizhne on the 17th, match exactly with a BUK from the 53rd BUK brigade from Kursk, which was recorded in a convoy from Kurk to the Ukraine border at the end of June.

THAT is investigative journalism, using independently (publicly) verifiable data in the MH17 case.

However, the author of the article seems to define “independently verifiable data” in a different way.
He seems to adhere to authority for that, and that is by definition NOT “independently verifiable”.
Fr example :

“All requests to provide independently verifiable data have remained unanswered. That includes requests for a certified copy of radar data released by the Russian Ministry of Defense, certified copies of communications between Ukrainian Air Traffic Controllers and the flight crew on board the downed Boeing 777-200, and not least a certified copy of the Comma Separated Variable (CSV) file from the downed Boeing 777-200’s flight data recorder.”

Now, imagine that we had this “certified copy” of the radar data by the Russian Defense Ministry.
How would that “certified copy” make the radar data “independently verifiable” ?

Same thing for the ATC data.

The author makes the conceptual mistake that any appeal to authority (such as a report from the Dutch Safety Board) can be made more transparent by another appeal to authority (such as a CSV file from the flight data recorder). That reasoning is simply not logical.

Another flaw in the reasoning of this author is that he forgets to even LOOK at the data that is available.
For example, the radar data from the Russian Defense Ministry AS GIVEN in their 21st of July tells us a great deal. Why not look at that, instead of arguing that it is not “certified” ?

The ONLY way to obtain “independently verifiable data” is by using publicly available evidence, and that is exactly what REAL investigative journalists like Bellingcat, Ukraine@war and InterpreterMag have been doing.

And they found a GREAT deal of evidence, which has not been debunked, and is consistent with the official findings of the DSB, and compiles a compelling story. A story which points at a Russian BUK firing from Russian controlled area, with a Russian crew and Russian commanders.

Rob, on the one hand you accept it when the Pentagon issues a statement, even though the Pentagon offers no proof and has lied before.
But if Dr Neal Krawetz says a photo has been manipulated and explains why you say it is an argument by authority.
Can you please make up your mind

Eric, I only noted that the Pentagon statement is consistent with publicly available information.
Which adds credibility to both.

Regarding Neil Krawetz, I asked for a a link to the argument that “The smoke trail has been debunked by Neal Krawetz.”, which is what Ken Oath claimed. And that is a valid question, which so far remained unanswered.

And I noted that Neil Krawetz own remark ”I had nothing to do with their [Bellingcat’s] faulty analysis,” is an appeal to authority, since Neil Krawetz did NOT present an argument on WHY he believes Bellingcat’s analysis is faulty.

Yes..the rebels captured a buk or buks from the incompetent Ukrainians who in some part did not want to kill their fellow Ukrainians. We know this because the Ukrainians told us the rebels captured a buks.
All this shows is that the rebels had a buk.
The question is which buk shot down mh17? One the Ukrainians had or a broken one the rebels had?

A question for those here. Is there any potential satellite photo that could be purchased from Digital Globe that could provide important evidence? What time and place would be the best evidence of something?